Stone Goddess (Isabella Hush Series Book 3)

by Thea Atkinson

  I began to understand why Maddox had been so insistent on me keeping my eyes downcast. It wasn't just for meekness, it was out of necessity.

  Young women ambled around the room, naked from the waist up, with short skirts swinging.

  Two of them wore white knee socks and MaryJane shoes but nothing else. They had large breasts and neat hips completely void of any follicle of hair. The burnished skin looked as though it was polished and oiled. They walked together, arm in arm, and stopped every so often to inspect a couple, perhaps touching one or two of them, and then moved on.

  It was almost as though to them, the room was the equivalent of a tasting bar where sips of champagne could be taken alongside bolts of whiskey.

  "Succubi," Maddox said, following my gaze. "Ancient ones. They're meant to improve the energy."

  He eyed the women for a long moment then averted his gaze almost awkwardly. He muttered something to himself that I couldn't hear and then, seeming to know exactly where my own eyes were, he rattled the chain.

  "Stop gawking, Isabella," he said.

  I sighed.

  "You're no fun," I said, but I skated my gaze back to my feet as he led me along.

  "You said Errol gave you a mental image of the man we seek," he said under his breath.

  "Yes, an older looking guy. Kind of Sean Conneryish."

  "Sean Connery?"

  I had to swing my gaze to his. "Seriously," I said. "You don't watch any movies?"

  "Human drama doesn't excite me," he said and steered me toward the door with the vanilla bean.

  "Methinks thou dost protest too much," I said, peering beneath my lashes to sees two youngish looking men, completely nude heading toward us.

  In one easy movement, Maddox spun me to face him, his knee slipping between my legs and parting them.

  Interestingly enough, they parted easily. My breath caught in my throat. For one moment I thought he would kiss me and my mind flooded with confusion. I'd misread those earlier signals and I was resigned not to do it again.

  But now, with the feel of his muscled chest beneath by palms, feeling the stuttering of his heartbeat, I wondered if the atmosphere was getting to him too.

  I fluttered my eyes way up to meet his. He really was so very tall and in the elven boots without a heel, I only came up midway his chest. He gazed down at me and I had to resist the urge to reach up and brush away the fox-colored hair that framed his jawline. The stubble was still there, all reddish and smoky gray.

  I wanted to feel the roughness of it against my palm, pull him down and nuzzle against it until my cheek was sore.

  Worse, I wanted to feel that stubble against far more tender areas than my cheeks.

  "You're flushed," he said. "You certainly can't be hot in that garb."

  "I admit it is a bit overwhelming," I said, and discovered that no matter how hard I tried to look him in the eye, my gaze was locked on his mouth. I swallowed to clear the lump that formed. "I think I'm going to faint or something."

  "It's allure," he said. A note of huskiness burnished the usual tones of his voice, and I knew he was trying to get me to meet his gaze.

  "That's all, Isabella," he said. "The incubus has woven a good bit of it all over the place. Humans have a hard time resisting. Even a few Kindred have trouble."

  I wondered if he was one of those.

  "You don't think it has anything to do with all the lovemaking going on?"

  I almost twisted around to see what the noise was to my left but he held me tightly.

  He shuffled us both sideways, butting into a table laid out with gargantuan bowls of sex toys. Some I'd seen before, some I had no idea what to do with. My hand reached out to touch something that reminded me of a whip except it had several lashes, each with a hookish barb on the end.

  "This isn't love-making," he said with a sudden tightness in his voice that confused me. He pulled me closer still, my chest against his as his gaze darted over my shoulder. "This is cheaply manufactured lust."

  "I doubt this was cheap," I said, indicating the bowls of toys.

  He cupped his hand over the back of my head and tilted it back so I could meet his gaze.

  "As heady as this is," he said. "It's nothing to what will be going on inside the spectacles."

  "You say that like you've been to a good number of orgies," I said.

  "I'm immortal," he said shortly. "I've seen a lot of things. "

  I wasn't sure whether the emotion climbing through my throat was jealousy that he'd been to lots of events like this or relief that he could handle what might be coming. If this was just the beginning, I wasn't sure what would go on later, and it was almost comforting to know someone more experienced than me was at my side.

  "Should we carry on, then?" I said, trying to block out the sight of two very beautiful women peeling off their clothes and heading our way.

  "Do you think you're ready?" he said. I noted he took great pains not to look where my eye kept wandering. Good lord, were those breasts even real?

  "Isabella," he said. "If this is the fluff room, and you're not immune, we're going to have trouble."

  One of the succubi ambling about the room drifted near, pushing aside the naked women already enroute. Both of them devoured Maddox with their eyes but deferred to the succubus.

  She ran a long slender finger blood red nails along the skin of my arm. Every inch of my flesh strained to be touched again. I felt myself leaning in to it, aching for a full palm, a stroking touch.

  "It's pretty for a human," she said to Maddox. "I might be persuaded to educate her for you."

  I watched Maddox's jaw clench. "No," he said.

  She scowled at him. "You're not playing by the rules."

  "Fuck the rules," he said.

  She snapped a nasty look at him but she drifted away all the same.

  "You didn't have to be rude," I said.

  "Are you forgetting why we're here?"

  "Of course not." I squared my shoulders and felt the gauze scratch against my breasts. "I'm not an idiot."

  "You're acting like a besotted idiot," he said through clenched teeth.

  I noticed a thin sheen of sweat beading on his brow. His posture was tense and rigid. The usual arrogant demeanor was gone. In its place was a man whose face was as tight as a virgin's thighs.

  I wasn't sure why, but his awkwardness made me feel a heck of a lot better. I could almost feel the allure receding.

  "If you don't unclench that sphincter," I said. "You're going to suck your legs right up your ass."

  He looked down at me with a baleful glare. "It's time to find Errol and get the show on the road," he said. "We've wasted enough time."

  "You were all teasing and macho outside," I said. "Now you're acting like a monk caught with his cassock open in front of the pearly gates. Buck up, man. We've got shit to do."

  I started to spin around, but he jerked on the chain and it rattled against my bare clavicle.

  "Stick close to me," he said sharply. "I can't have you wandering off and getting mixed up in this mess."

  "How can I wander off?" I said, lifting my arms in the air indicate the state of my shackles.

  "I have no idea," he said. "But you have a penchant for getting into trouble."

  I might have argued, but I spotted two large men heading our way with determination in their step and commitment written all over their expressions. They carried dominatrix type whips. Both of them looked like Greek gods with naked torsos biceps hewn from stone.

  I felt a flush of lust shiver over my skin. Whatever I'd been wanting to do a moment ago slipped from my mind like a drop of oil on a hot pan.

  "Oh, Mama," I said before I could stop myself. "Whatever those things are, they're hot as hades."

  "It's the allure," he said with a note of pique. "It's got you enthralled."

  "Well, I like it."

  I felt a pull, almost as though one of them had tugged on my chain and I reacted by stumbling forward. Those pecs. I just wanted
to run my palm down along them to find the warmth of one of those hard bellies.

  Maddox snagged my elbow.

  "Isabella," he grumbled. "Snap out of it."

  "What?" I said, turning in a daze back to him and slipping my fingers between the buttons of his shirt.

  He sucked in a breath when I grazed his navel.

  My mind flooded with images of the two of us together and I felt hot and flushed as they raced through my mind.

  "You've seen me naked," I said. "Remember? You gave me a shower."

  "Stop it," he said. "Get a hold of yourself."

  The men, I noticed, had halted. I waggled my fingers in their direction, inviting them closer. All I could think was how divine it would be surrounded by gorgeous men, crushed in the middle, feeling skin on skin.

  "Why are you still dressed?" I asked Maddox. I tugged at the buttons. "It's unnatural."

  "What's unnatural," he said, pulling away so that my hand fell away from him. "Is the aura in here. It's making you crazy."

  "Not crazy," I whispered. "Wet. What else are we here for except to enjoy it?"

  "You know why we're here."

  One of the men closed the distance between us and picked up the slack in my chain as though he planned to lead me away.

  I thrust my hips to the side, giving him good view of my thigh. The loin cloth was too long, I decided.

  He gave me an appraising glance.

  "That's better," he said, addressing Maddox. "Now, let her go. Serena wants her. She's waiting in the Hunn room."

  "The Hunn room," I echoed thoughtfully. "That sounds nice."

  "It is not nice," Maddox said in a tight voice. "It is the opposite of nice." He nodded in the direction of the Dante's Inferno door. "It's in the seventh circle."

  Maddox pushed me behind him. I was stuck between the broad back of an immovable force and a table filled with sex toys and I wasn't sure which was more intimidating.

  One of the men addressed Maddox.

  "Humans are supposed to be fair play," he said.

  "Over my dead body," Maddox said. "I don't share."

  "Then you might have rethought your choice to attend," the other man said.

  They bustled forward, obviously Errol's muscle. No doubt the slender woman had gone to complain.

  Maddox looked over his shoulder at me. "Give me that Trioldo," he said.

  "The what now?" I backed up against the table. Now that all I could were Maddox's rigid shoulders, I felt a bit more myself.

  He jerked his elbow toward a rather large, triple shafted toy the size of my forearm. I cringed when I saw it, but hefted it with both hands, staring at it with a tightness in my jaw that meant I was grimacing. Probably unattractively.

  He took it from me and held it like a bat.

  "Now," he said to the men. "Where do you want it?"

  CHAPTER 14

  A quick peek around Maddox's midriff revealed the two handsome men had become four and that they had ceased to be attractive in any way that a human woman would enjoy. They weren't vampires, but each one of their teeth extended into sharp points and when they opened their mouths, those teeth dripped some sort of fluid that was brackish and stunk like skunk spray as it landed on the floor in front of them.

  I clutched Maddox's sleeve. "Sweet Jehosophat," I said, sick to the pit of my stomach that a moment ago, I'd wanted to touch them. "Watch out," I said and hid my face in the folds of the back of his shirt.

  His free hand swung around to search for me and I took it. His grasp made me feel safe for the one moment it landed on me. All too soon, he let go to grasp the handle of the trioldo in a partner with his other hand.

  He swirled the sex toy in a big arc at his side as the four men turned into six, two of them wavering in from thin air. All of them held cattle prods at their sides that burned with an internal sort of light and were decorated with runes.

  "Punishers," Maddox said.

  "Which?" I squeaked from behind him. "The men, the weapons, or the toy?"

  As if in answer, one of them, a tall bloke with a buzzed haircut and several tattoos of grotesquely painful scenes inked into his bare chest leaned sideways to catch a good look at me.

  "Pets are meant to be shared," he said. "Failure to comply means punishment for its host."

  "I don't share," Maddox said.

  "We've had several requests for your pet already," he said and brandished his weapon. The end of it began to glow.

  "I don't care," Maddox said.

  "Two goddesses have put their bids in."

  "Again," Maddox said. "I don't share."

  I tugged his sleeve. "Tell them I only do men; maybe that will help."

  I said it into his back and he stiffened. The folds of his shirt stretched out across his shoulders and went taut from hem to collar.

  "None of the parties in question are men, Isabella," he said. "It's glamor. That's all."

  They swarmed around us and if anyone else in the room noticed, they paid no mind. The razor's edge of one Punisher's weapon touched down lightly on a human looking woman gripping the leash of an old man. She cried out and bloody boils freckled her arm in a line from the entry point to her clavicle. They burst with a hissing ooze that burned the old gent's pate.

  Apparently the penalty for keeping your human company to yourself was severe.

  "Sheesh," I said. "Overkill much?"

  But that was all I got out before the swarm became deadly. Maddox shoved me backwards as the men fell upon him and I toppled sideways. I crawled into what I thought was a safe spot to hold out till Maddox could clear up the disagreement.

  Because it needed to be a disagreement. Anything else would get us thrown out or worse.

  I watched as one by one the men threw themselves at Maddox. He swung the sex toy in an arc that struck one of them in the ear. One heartbeat later and the six men got sucked back up into one.

  Next I knew, Errol was striding over with the succubus in tow.

  She had a furrowed and angry brow and her breasts swung free, jiggling like massive water balloons. I forgot I was supposed to keep my eyes downcast and openly gaped at her.

  "For pity's sake," Maddox complained. "Can't you cover those up?"

  Fury did not sit well on her features. She didn't bother to address Errol at all, just lifted her hand and pulled the trioldo straight from Maddox's grip. It landed like a fish on the floor between them and flopped three times before settling.

  I snickered. I couldn't help it.

  The succubus clawed her gaze my way.

  I've never been into women, but I swear, the energy that came from her made my entire body tingle. I lost all interest in what might have been going on. All I wanted was for this woman to run the back of her fingers down my hip. I stuck my leg out, keen for her to see the skin, to imagine touching it.

  Someone grabbed me by the waist and yanked me backwards and only then did I realize I'd been walking liking a drugged mute toward the succubus.

  "Get out of here, Kitten," Maddox hissed. He tossed my chain at me, letting go his end. "Run. Somewhere. Anywhere. I'll catch up."

  I did run, chains rattling and weighing me down and making my flight an awkward, fumbling thing. I bolted for an opening to the left, not caring where it took me, just careful to keep my gaze down, refusing to meet the eye of anyone who could snare me with allure.

  No one lingered at the mouth of it, handing out toys, drugs, or drinks. I paused at the opening, keeping my eyes carefully pinned to my toes and only occasionally checking to be sure I wasn't heading straight into a wall or worse.

  I kept my hands close to my chest, with the fetters clutched tightly enough that I didn't trip on them.

  It was a short hallway, lit by Grecian looking lamps that hung from iron chains attached to the ceiling every few feet.

  Frescoes swathed the walls in color. Mosaic tiles lent a slippery touch to my boots as I shuffled along, trying to work out what the pattern was. It took me several steps before I realize
d it depicted a nude women peering out from a cluster of tall reeds. A goat kicked up its heels beside her.

  The sound of music lured me forward into a grove lush with tree canopies and the sound of tinkling water. A goat bleated from somewhere in the midst of a thicket of roses and came barreling out as though it had been given the bum's rush. A much larger, much hairier goat emerged from the thicket, strutting through the tall grass with a wooden flute hanging over its chest. It paused as it saw me, front foot held aloft like a dog on point.

  I swore I saw the beast smile.

  Even as I watched, it stood on its hind legs, its torso lengthening out into a thick human chest. The flute hung from his neck like an afterthought, slung sideways, it swung back and forth as he sauntered toward me.

  Giggles came from the thicket and someone called out to him in a foreign language. He smiled at me and held his finger to his lips.

  "They think I'm getting them wine." He lifted the flute to his lips and blew out a mournful note, testing the timber. "What do you think?" he said. "Is it to your liking?"

  I shrugged. I'd never liked the pan pipe.

  "Too airy fairy," I said.

  Elegant brows knit together in thought. "I agree," he finally said and lifted the pipe from its string around his neck and breathed into one tube after the other. The instrument trumpeted out a blast of jazz that sounded like the serpent coiling around Eve's ankles.

  Sensing this was all a test, I shrugged and he grinned, taking up the challenge. Note after note, rock, country, classical, even something that sounded like punk blasted from the pipe.

  Whatever giggles were going on behind the thicket transformed to moans each time the music genre shifted. I wasn't completely certain they were sounds of displeasure.

  "You're still dressed," he complained at last, dropping the pipe to his chest again.

  "Shouldn't I be?"

  He let go a weary sigh and collapsed onto a green velvet lounge that leapt out from the forest as he let go his footing.

  "I've never failed to woo the clothes off a neophyte. I must be losing my touch."

  He ran his hand absently over his stomach, tickling his belly button and regarding me thoughtfully.